Friday, November 16, 2012

Teacher Quality: Investing in What Matters

By
Arthur L. Costa, Robert J. Garmston, and Diane P. Zimmerman

Spurred
by awards of federal funding under the Race to the Top competition, many states
are adopting teacher-evaluation systems with student achievement as the
ultimate goal. This drive to create robust evaluation systems places far too
much emphasis on inspecting and testing. A system of quality control founded on the
belief that inspection and multiple-choice tests are valid measures of
effectiveness is flawed. The investment in external measures hides our most
valuable assets—the cognitive resources of teachers. Too often, standards are
the basis for inspection, with minimal dialogue and little attention to
teachers' intellect, wisdom, intuition, and creativity.

Quality
matters. How we assess it is important. However, the idea that the complex
processes of teaching can be easily inspected or measured by answers on a
bubble test is erroneous. As educators, we are puzzled that more people are not voicing
concerns about this trend toward an oversimplified system of quality control. A
few in the field have become outspoken and urge a more thoughtful approach.
Policymakers ought to heed the collective wisdom of these thought leaders.

Notably,
Diane Ravitch changed her direction and advice, which was pro-standards,
when the emphasis moved toward an obsession with test scores. Charlotte
Danielson, a leading expert on research-based frameworks for instruction,
cautions against simplistic "drive by" observation models. She
advises that even after training, "most observers require multiple
opportunities to practice using [her] framework effectively and to calibrate
their judgments with others." Despite her cautions, far too many
policymakers advocate for an inspector's toolbox full of rubrics and a singular
focus on making inspections better.

In a
recent Wall Street Journal article, Thomas Kane, a Harvard
University professor and the director of the Gates Center for Policy Research,
and Stanford University professor Linda Darling Hammond debate the use of tests
for teacher evaluation. Kane, a proponent of the value-added system of
measuring gains and evaluating teacher quality with tests, admits that
"student-achievement gains are imperfect measures," and then
justifies his position by saying that "the same is true for all
measures."

"When external evaluators treat a prescribed
map as complete and do not engage in deep and meaningful conversations, they
lose sight of the fact that educators have vast storehouses of tacit
knowledge."

Darling-Hammond
cites the wide variation in test scores, pointing out the many variables that
impact test scores, including one of the most startling: summer vacations. Researchers at John Hopkins
University found that
summer vacations make a large difference in the variation in test scores. After
the three-month vacation, upper-middle-class students show the most gains in
test points, while students from low-income families show the most gains across
a school year. That the enriched summers of upper-middle-class students could
make so much difference in test scores should shake anyone's faith in these
reductionist measures of teacher quality.

How
have we ignored the years of inner wisdom developed from practice, from
teachers' cognitive capital? Within teachers' repertoire, there is layered
expertise including, but not limited to: knowledge of content, pedagogy, child
development, learning styles, culture, classroom management, and, importantly,
knowledge of self. More often than not, teachers have valid reasons for why
they might deviate from a prescription. When being assessed, however, they are
seldom asked, nor do they proffer explanations.

When
external evaluators treat a prescribed map as complete and do not engage in
deep and meaningful conversations about the larger territory of teaching and
learning, they lose sight of the fact that educators have vast storehouses of
tacit knowledge based on experience.

The
often-cited research on adult learning by Norman Sprinthall and Lois
Thies-Sprinthall demonstrated that teachers with higher conceptual levels are
more adaptive and flexible in their teaching styles. They act in accordance
with a disciplined commitment to human values and produce higher-achieving
students who are more cooperative and involved in their work. More recently, Daniel Pink, the
author of the popular book Drive, and the researchers Carol Dweck
and Albert Bandura have argued that an emphasis on external criteria over which
professionals have no control oversimplifies and negates the complex decisions
that are the nexus of professional learning.

In
our years of coaching teachers and training future coaches, we have learned
that teachers whose schools support cognitive engagement and growth have the
advantage when it comes to instructional quality. With regular coaching, teachers
develop a strong internal sense of control or efficacy through reflecting on
their classroom decisions. When teachers are reflective, flexible, and
adaptive, students learn and professional knowledge expands.